The word Islam mean submission to the Will of God in Arabic and is the Muslim name for their religion, which is the world’s second-largest.
Islam is a religion expressing both positive and negative aspects in their interpretation and application of its teachings. In this piece of paper, I will focus on historical events and not religious practice. In this article you will read things that you have never heard before and that Islamic propaganda and the state keep hidden.
Everything that is written in the article is not my personal views about Islam but the article is written based on believable historians such as Ibn Khaldun and Al-Tabari.
Without a doubt, Islam is the best thing that could happen to the Bedouins of Najd and Hejaz. Islam was the ideology that could bring the Bedouins together. Bedouins lived by pillage and jealousy and were not civilized people. The places they conquered were left in ruins and many nations and civilizations were destroyed after their defeat. This meant that human civilization went back in time. The Sumerian people then knew that the sun is a star in a round shape and all other plants circle the sun it took us several hundred years to find out this truth until in August 1609 when Galileo built his first telescope (in Europe) Ottoman Empire already had a printing press in the 16th century but it took them several hundred years to use this invention due to Islamic restrictions. This meant, among other things, that they started late with their tanzimat (reforms) in 1839.
When the Bedouins conquered the Persian Empire and territories from the Roman Empire, Umar Ibn Khattab, the first Khalifa, ordered that all books must be thrown into the water or burned. The books were burned even though the warlord Said ibn Waqqas had suggested to Umar that the books could be distributed among the soldiers as loot.
”It is said that Sa‘d b. Abî Waqqâṣ counted (the population) beyond Ctesiphon. It numbered 137,000, including 37,000 heads of families. But when the Persians came under the rule of the Arabs and were conquered, they lasted only a short while and were wiped out as if they had never been.”
The Islamic propaganda beat the first battle between the Persian Empire and the Bedouins (Al Qadisiyah) as a miracle that their god Allah was behind. Still, the truth is that the Sassanid dynasty had been weakened after a hundred years of wars with the Romans. After many years of wars and a major coup in Court (The king Khosrow II and his family were killed), there were major political and economic problems. In the Qur’an, you can read about these historical events where the Romans and Persians were at war. The Bedouin kept a close eye on the two great world powers. According to Islamic propaganda, it is a miracle that Muhammad had anticipate the decline of the Persians, but how can it be a miracle when the Qur’an was written after the decline of the Persians and not before? It is unknown when the first Qur’an was written (possibly under Umar ibn al-Khattab), but the final Qur’an was selected in the Al-Mihna conference under the Abbasids by selected Islamic clerics ”We also read in history that it was not a war between Persians and Muslims alone but a war where Persians sometimes became allies with Muslims to knock out their Persian opponent.”
The internal power struggles gave rise to some Sassanid’s helping the Bedouins in ”Al Qadisiyah”. This may sound a bit strange, but if the Sassanid’s had not done it, their rival the Parthians would have taken over. The Sassanid’s had become very unpopular among the people and they had no choice but to knock out their rival who was both stronger and more popular. We know that later during the Abbasid Caliphate (750-1517) the Persians also played a big role in the Abbasids taking over power.
”This applies to the Barmecides. It has been reported that they belonged to a Persian ‘house’, the members of which had been guardians of the Persian fire temples. When they became clients of the ‘Abbâsids, their original (descent) was not taken into consideration.”
But let’s go back to a main character in the Islamic world by the name of Salman al Farsi (Salman the Persian) .. who was this man and why will Islamic propaganda keep him hidden?
Muhammad has a total of 63 wars of which only one Battle of the Trench (Khandaq) was self-defense. Salman the Persians played a major role in this war when he advised Muhammad how the Persians dug ditch in self-defense. He was not the only adviser Muhammad had, but he was the most important. History also points to Abu Dharr al-Ghifari as an adviser to Muhammad in guerilla wars. Popular accounts of Abu Dharr reported that his tribe lived by pillaging caravans. The third adviser was Suhayb the Roman or Suhayb al-Rumi. He had been to Rome and knew several things. He advised Muhammad in The Battle of Badr. Badr was the first large-scale confrontation between Muslims and the Quraish. Muhammad was good friends with the Jews until the battle of Badr. In the beginning, he had chosen Jerusalem as the place of worship for the Muslims, but after the Jews did not want to help him in the war, he became unfriendly to them and called them pretender. The Jews would not lend Muhammad money without interest while Muhammad expected their full support. Later Muhammad changed the place of worship to Mecca. This was a good political decision as many of his opponents could see the advantage in Islam. ”All historians agree that Allah and Mecca existed before Muhammad and the Bedouins knew about monotheism because they lived among Jews and Christians but they were not interested in their religion and would rather worship the Bedouin God Allah.”
But let’s go back to Salman the Persian who was the most important. Even though Salman was a Persian he had a great hatred for the Persians. Throughout his lifetime he strengthened the Muslims’ hateful eloquence against Persians but who was this man? Salman had no family in the Persian kingdom and would never tell about his past, but it suggests that he was an immigrant from Bilad al-Sham (Sham region) present-day Syria. He was a Christian and advisor to Muhammad. He was a follower of Arius – Christianity. He hated both the Romans and the Persians because they were both parochial of minorities. The Romans were followers of Melchizedek while Christians in the Sham area were Nestorian Christians. They were both opposed to Arius Christianity which denied the thesanctityof Jesus. When we look at Islam, it is very similar to Arius Christianity. ISLAM also denies the divinity of Jesus and regards Jesus as an ordinary prophet. According to his religion, Salman was waiting for a savior. He could give this savior role to Muhammad who ensured that his Arius Christianity could survive with the help of the birth of Islam. Salman knew well the weaknesses of the Persian Empire and after conquering Ctesiphon (Iraq), which was one of the Persian capitals, he became the ruler of this city. Johannes Damascus( 675-749), who was one of the Fathers of the Eastern Orthodox Church, does not call Muslims haters. In contrast to other Christians, he calls those Christians who have left Christianity and must be converted back to Christianity again. This means he knows the truth about Islam and Arius Christianity. He also expresses that Islam was good for the Bedouins as it teaches them cleanliness.
Let’s look at Muhammad as a person. Who was this man? He had lost his family as a child and grew up with his uncle. Muhammad. Muhammad becomes a skilled merchant like his uncle and marries the rich woman Khadijah, who is many years older than him. Khadija proposed to Muhammad and she was also the first to accept Islam.Hazrat Khadija helped Muhammad in spreading Islam in different areas.. In the beginning, Muhammad had many opponents such as Abû Safyân. The Meccan army and the Quraysh general Khalid ibn al-Walid had almost put an end to Muslims in the Battle of Uhud. They were confiderated with the Persians therefore Muhammad did not like them or the Persians. The Persians had also during their conquests against the Romans blocked trade routes for Muhammad who worked as traders with the Romans in his youth.
Later Muhammad’s opponents became Muslims one by one. This was partly because of the new ideology which became more and more popular and partly because non-Muslims could risk losing their lives. Islam brought the Bedouin’s wealth, women, and a better life. Bedouins could engage in temporary marriages with slave women, making the relationships more transient in nature.. This tradition still exists in Iran under the name Sigheh (temporary marriage) although it was only suitable for slave women in Muhammad’s time ( nikah mut’ah) .Muhammad gave two of his daughters to the 3 Caliph Uthman. Umm Kulthum bint Muhammad was one of the daughters and it was all for political reasons because Uthman was a rich man and he had a lot of influence.
”Al-Mas‘ûdî says: ‘In the days of ‘Uthmân, the men around Muḥammad acquired estates and money. On the day ‘Uthmân was killed, 150,000 dinars and 1,000,000 dirhams were in the hands of his treasurer. The value of his estates in Wâdî l-Qurâ and Ḥunayn and other places was 200,000 dinars. He also left many camels and horses. ”
Soon islam enriches Bedouins with wealth. Whenever Muhammad’s army conquered an area, Muhammad divided 4/5 of the wealth between his subjects and kept 1/5 for himself, which was later called khums in Islam.
Islam, like many other religions, has been political from the very beginning. The Persian religions of Zoroastrianism and Christianity also proved to be political when they all took over power in history and ruled over man. During the Iranian revolt(1979), Ayatollah Khomeini’s basic thought was that Islam must rule. Many Islamic priests were against it as they believed that a grand imam must submit to Islam, but Ayatollah Khomeini believed that as Muhammad was superior to Islam in his time, a grand imam must also be so. His thinking became the fundamental view in Iran. We can also ask the same question of the Pope in the Christian world. What is his position? These discussions are not new since already in the Islamic world philosophers like Ibn Sina (Avicenna) questioned Islam and created challenges in the Islamic world. Throughout history, Islam has more or less maintained its position in the Middle Eastat the down of modernity, Islam presented challenges to the emerging modern world by navigating the tension between the traditional values and the enrolment of dynamic technological and social progress, as for the first time in Iranian history, King Naser al-Din Shah (1848-1896) was shot by an Islamist, and that was the beginning of political Islam in modern Iranian history.
Finally, I want to criticize the Blowback theory, which is Islamic propaganda and blames the West entirely. In the war in Afghanistan, the West was involved and supported the mujahedin, but volunteer Arabs who fought for Al-Qaeda were not supported by the West….
My next article will deal with Western populism and Christianity…
Article Courtesy: Arvin Niknia, Independent Author
